


Tea, Raspberry, Hot.

by Trekkele



Series: A Townie, A Linguist, And Several Kinds Of Tea. [10]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Chess, Gen, Jim Kirk is a genius, Just not in this one, Spock is too, dadmiral pike fucks up a bit, grading papers as foreplay, limited snark my apologies, thank god nyota likes you spock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-11 07:18:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17442404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trekkele/pseuds/Trekkele
Summary: Captain Pike decides to pit his first officer and most promising recruit against each other in a chess match. One is more irritated about this then the other.Oh, and Uhura is there, emotionally competent and far more observant then any of these idiots.





	Tea, Raspberry, Hot.

**Author's Note:**

> As promised, there is tea. Yes, the title is a tng reference, and yes I will be using that format again. I couldn't help myself.
> 
> I'm not sure of the implications of Jim and Spock meeting earlier, but this is still supposed to be early on his academy years, so it might to nothing.

Uhura wasn't even supposed to be there. Which, in the big scheme of things, was the least of what went wrong, but still. She hoped no one got in trouble for that.

She’d been sitting with Spock, helping grade papers and trying to concentrate on the misuse of the Vulcan past tense and not the way his hands were moving. She was almost sure he was doing it on purpose, she  _ knows  _ he was, and just to test that she looked up through her eyelashes and flicked her tongue across her lower lip and-

Then his computer pinged, and a message came in on his comm. A pity, because she could have sworn he was five seconds away from an actual emotion and then Gaila would owe her. What, exactly, she wasn’t sure, but it didn’t matter now, did it? 

He read it quickly, eyes moving across the screen as a slight frown creased between his eyebrows. Rising from his chair slowly, almost reluctantly, he looked at her as though he was annoyed at the interruption. 

“It seems,” he said slowly, “that Captain Pike has need of me.”

 

* * *

 

She tags along both out of curiosity and the fact that she isn’t going to grade papers without the ability to occasionally space out by watching her incredibly attractive partners “I'm concentrating like a vulcan” face, and they end up in a side classroom in Sato Hall with Admirals Kyonna, Barnett, Nogura, and Captain Pike arguing over the necessity of requisition forms.

“Ah Professor Spock! Glad you could make it!” Admiral Nogura notices them first, and his eyes slide right over Nyota with the kind of feigned disinterest that came with being the only terran who didn’t quit as Spock’s TA after the first three weeks. “Captain Pike has challenged us to a little wager, and I have no doubt you’ll make it interesting.” He gave what might have been wink, behind a kind smile. There was a chess set on the table in the center of the room, and Captain Pike was fidgeting beside it.

He glanced over their shoulder and stood up straighter, “There you are, Cadet Kirk.” Everyone in the room turned at once to see Jim Kirk standing in the doorway, looking a bit like a deer in the headlights before he readjusted his expression and sauntered into the room without a care in the world. 

“You asked me to see you, Captain Pike?” Cool as you please, as though he usually met with three random admirals and a professor every time he spoke to his academic advisor. Knowing Jim, though, that wasn’t actually outside the realm of possibility.

‘My colleagues believe that no one could beat a vulcan at a game of strategy, or logic. I disagree.”

Something ugly flashes over Kirk’s face as he listens to Pike explain, and she thinks he doesn't even notice, too busy heckling the admirals and laying bets. It vanishes when she blinks again, and then Jim looks lazy and arrogant, sprawled over the chair he all but threw himself into and playing around with a pawn he plucked from the board in front him.

She’d have thought he’d take the king.

“So you want me to play a game of chess with the long-suffering Vulcan over there and lose you some credits. Sure. No problem.” Jim gives a lazy, drawling grin, feet spread out in front of him and stretching his arms over his head like golden haired cat. There’s a sharp edge to the blue in his eyes now and Uhura really hopes no one asks her to leave because she knows this is going to get  _ very  _ interesting. And probably not because of the chess.

“As far as I know, there is no suffering involved in this game.” Spock takes a seat across from Kirk, who sits up slightly and gives him a once over, eyes flicking from Uhura and back and then straight ahead again, placing the stolen pawn back onto the board. She finds it endearing, how some terran phrases are familiar to him and some make no sense, no matter how many times she uses or explains them to him. 

Kirk gives another grin, this one soft and almost private, nodding at Spock with some measure of respect. “A terran expression, which in this case means you need to put up with your colleagues idiosyncrasies despite having no stake or interest in their wager.” He says it matter of factly, kindly, because he doesn’t expect Spock to understand every quirk of his speech. 

It’s almost as endearing as Spock is.

“I see,” Spock pauses, glancing up at the Admirals (and Captain) who seem to be far more interested in the interactions between them then the actual game. “In that case, shall we begin?”

Jim chooses to play black, allowing Spock the first move, and the game proceeds in almost perfect silence despite the whispered kibitzing from behind them. She plays, occasionally, and can follow the game, but since the last person she played with was her little brother she doubts she sees everything they do, every move they choose not to take. Admiral Nogura seems particularly interested, giving little gasps every now and then and nodding or shaking his head over some decisions. 

It’s almost a half hour before one of the players speaks, and it’s Jim. He leans back, almost apologetically, and says “Shach.”

Clearly Spock recognizes the term, because he leans forward, blinking rapidly, and murmurs what sounds like “ _ remarkable _ ” in vulcan.

To his credit, Jim simply gives an awkward little smile and nods.

Spock moves a knight, and then Jim checks him again, and it quickly becomes apparent that for all intents and purposes the game is over, and Admiral Barnett gives a spluttering laugh, clapping a chuckling Captain Pike on the back. 

“Your boy is impressive, I’ll give you that!” he says, and that ugly shadow is back over Kirk’s face but once again Pike doesn’t notice. Admiral Kyonna does, it seems, sniffing the air in the way Caitians do when they think something is wrong.

Jim sets up the board again, telling Spock what he did and when, and pointing out a few places he missed an obvious (or obvious to Jim Kirk) opening. 

“That move was illogical,” Spock argues.

“But it worked.” Jim counters. 

She could watch them discuss this for a while, this back and forth and clashing systems trying to work together, but the admirals are now arguing over whether this answers the original question at all.

“The fact that your cadet was able to beat him at chess doesn't prove all that much, I mean how likely was this?”

“This outcome was statistically improbable,” Spock says, slowly again, eyes still studying the board, fascinated by the seemingly random decisions Jim had made.

“Improbable for me or improbable for you?” Kirk asked with a grin she thought looked almost forced, almost angry. Kirk was a study in contradicting body language, and watching him was like watching several different conversation at once, but you were never sure which one was the most important. 

“I do not understand your meaning, please clarify.” Spock’s eyes were still on the board, and he missed the way Jim’s lip curled and his fingers twitched, but Uhura didn’t. It seems she was the only one who was noticing how  _ Jim  _ felt about all this.

“Is it statistically improbable that you, A Vulcan, would lose,  _ or  _ is it statistically improbable that I, The Fuck-Up, would win?” He almost spat the words out, and while his voice was calm and steady nothing else about him was. The question seemed more directed at the Admirals, at Captain Pike, then at Spock, but he was looking straight ahead, shoulders tense.

Captain Pike startled from his position over their shoulders and abruptly leaned forward. “James-”

“No, don't.” Jim stood, and his voice wasn’t that tightly controlled calm anymore. It flowed over them in a rushing wave, and there was so much anger contained in it she thought the temperature rose by few degrees. This wasn't about chess anymore. “Because that's what this was, wasn't it? You showing off your wonder-kind, the delinquent you scraped off a floor and single handedly turned into a model StarFleet cadet.” He had turned to face Pike, and she could only see his profile, sharp and twisted and nothing like the usually relaxed, confident man she knew. But for once the words he was actually saying said more then the spaces between them and she wondered what about  _ this  _ had driven Jim to the edge.

“Never  _ mind  _ that I've been in the top five percent since I got here, never  _ mind  _ that I've had to work harder than anyone else to prove I  _ deserve  _ to be here, you still think you can show me off, as if  _ you  _ deserve any of the credit.” The “ _ you _ ” was covered in an emotion she couldn’t place, an almost,  _ resentment,  _ for something she couldn’t name.

Spock, wisely enough, had not moved from his seat, watching his commanding officer and his most promising recruit face off in a verbal sparring match that felt as though it had far more than a single chess game behind it. He met Uhura’s eyes over the table, and raised a single eyebrow barely a fraction of an inch. He knew that she knew Kirk, and she had no doubt she would be explaining this,  _ whatever  _ this was, to him later. Hopefully not over half graded papers this time.

“Is that what you believe cadet?” Captain Pike...Pike looked wrecked, if she thought about it, guilt and anger playing out in equal measure behind that “command facade” she’d learned to read around in her first week at the academy. None of those were aimed at Jim though. No, he was angry at something she couldn’t see. Kirk, of course, was nowhere near done, and he took another step closer to the normally collected captain, looking like an angry, hissing cat. 

“I believe no child should have to prove their worth to deserve a future but that's neither here nor there now is it?” And Pike flinched, absolutely horrified by whatever it was he had done, and this had nothing to do with chess anymore, and maybe it never had.

Jim sighed, rubbing a shaking hand over eyes and turning away from all of them. “Nevermind.” he said, grabbing a jacket off the back of his chair and throwing it over his shoulder. “Next time you feel the need to show off, Chris, do us both a favor and go fuck yourself.” Pike - Chris - flinched again, and she heard the echo of “ _ fleet royalty _ ” bounce around the mostly empty room, and off the non-reactions of the admirals who should be calling him out for that. She hurried out past them, not entirely sure why she was following Jim, but doing it anyways. 

Maybe because someone had too. 

 

* * *

 

She finds him pacing beside the giant picture windows on the third floor, the one no one ever went to because it was impossible to study with the whole campus and city and endless terran sky laid out before you.

There are replicators all along the wall, and an old fashioned coffee maker that someone kept stocked despite it’s infrequent use. Jim doesn’t say anything, so neither does she, picking her way through the different flavour options even as the silence grows heavy with all the things she thought about saying and then discarded. 

There was a pretty decent selection of tea up here.

“I like you,” she finally settles on, placing the flavor cup into the little slot and selecting the settings single mindedly, hating how she sounded like she was about to hand him a note with checkboxes,  _ do you like me, check yes or no. _

He grinned, a fake, blinding white thing and a few months ago she would have believed it. “Awww, Uhura - “ she interrupts with the same single minded focus and starts spooning honey into two of the starfleet issue mugs someone had placed on the counter.

“I like you,” she says again, and he stays silent this time, “and sometimes that bothers me because there are things people say about you that tell me I shouldn't.” There’s creamer in the mini-fridge, and she puts it on the counter in case he wants some.

“And what do people say about me.” It’s not a question, it’s a statement, and she can’t read him right now, but she doesn’t think he needs her to tell him, and she hates the entire academy for that. 

She tells him anyway.

“That you’re arrogant. You flirt with anything that moves and you use your last name to get what you want, and that the only reason you’re at the top of your classes is because you cheat or fuck your way into to it, and sometimes both just in case.” he stares at her, mouth twisted up in a way she recognizes as anger, but his eyes are so, so tired. 

_ No one should have to prove they deserve a future _ , he’d said, and here he was, proving it again and again, and yet no one listened. How long had no one been listening?  She held out one of the mugs to him, and his eyes softened, just a bit. She wasn’t done yet.

“But what I know about you,” she continues, watching him sip his tea and pretending he didn’t want to know, but he did, “is that none of that is true." it isn't. She guesses its easier to believe that then believe that Jim Kirk is just _that good_. But she's never settled for easy, she won't start now. "And that you’re funny, but never so much as when your trying to cheer someone else up. You speak more languages then most linguistic first years and you pretend you’re dumber than you are, because you think people won’t like you if you’re smarter than them. You’re nice to everyone except bullies and you only care when they’re being mean to someone else and you’re ridiculously loyal to your friends, to the point of mutiny, and you listen to people like they're the only ones who matter, because to you, in that moment, they do.” he has his head buried in his tea cup and there’s plenty more she can say but she thinks he gets it.

“The people who ask you to prove yourself aren’t the ones that matter anyway,” she says, dismissing the ghosts of the admiralty and the professors and maybe even George Kirk with a single sentence. “Your friends don’t care, and we know you deserve to be here as much as any of us.”  _ You’ve proven that _ , she thinks, but he was right. It was never their place to ask him to do that.

Jim takes another sip and starts to say something, but changes his mind and just shakes his head.

“It’s perfect,”  he says, raising the mug a little, almost like a toast. “Thank you.”

He smiles, and it’s a real one, smaller than usual but incredibly sincere. They just sit there for a while, drinking tea and watching the academy go by.

**Author's Note:**

> Again, since the series takes place from Nyota's POV, we sometimes only see the tail end of an argument/situation - Jim's reaction may seem a little intense, but it's hardly the first time Pike's tried to show him off, and he's been getting fed up with it for a while now. Uhura only witnesses one of these interactions, and it happens to be the loudest one.   
> I also really don't want it to come across as if Uhura is carrying everything in their friendship, I just think her own personality "flaws" are not emotional ones, while Jim's are.   
> Oh yeah, "shach" means check, I hadn't even realized he said that till I edited it and so I left it.  
> Thanks for reading! (*disappears for another three weeks with zero updates*)


End file.
